Friday 80s Flashback for October 26, 2012 (on a Saturday)

"Spooky Moon" taken by me on 10/22/2004

[Halloween] -- Welcome to a very special holiday edition of the Friday 80s Flashback. Yes, it's time for another flashback of a Flashback. I'm re-running my special Halloween edition from October 29, 2010.

Now, as far as I'm concerned, Halloween songs typically fall somewhere between being (1) Oh-so-obviously Halloweenesque, and (2) Stealthily Halloweenish. That is true regardless of the decade. Right off the bat (no pun intended there), we have to agree that Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is squarely in the first camp. And you have to understand, that I'm not going to feature it in today's Flashback. Yes, "Thriller" was huge for radio and MTV, and everyone wanted to learn the Thriller dance in 1983. Hell, that dance continues to inspire popular culture. But it's not featured today because it's just too obvious a choice. Moving on the other end of the spectrum, we have stealthily Halloweenish songs like "Dr. Heckyll and Mr. Jive" (1982) by Men At Work. This song is a clever riff on Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde." It also features that wonderful stock science fiction character who has made numerous appearances in Halloween/horror flicks, particularly of the b-grade variety. You know him, you love him, he is The Mad Scientist!

Now that I have provided a longer-than-usual intro, you are probably waiting not-so-patiently for me to unveil the actual Flashback choices, right? Well, please know that I needed to provide that info so you can understand that, for your Halloween listening today, I offer one song from the obvious camp and two that hue a little closer to the stealth end of the spectrum. And maybe, just maybe if you're very good, there will be a bonus track.

Read and hear more after the break.

Friday 80s Flashback for October 19, 2012

Puddle Reflection by ~Mustardplz

[Pacific Rain] -- You may recall that I was recently in the Pacific Northwest. Specifically, my trip was to points in and around Washington's Olympic National Park bookended by stops in Seattle. Now, I know you will find this hard to believe, but it rained there. No, really. It RAINED. Sure, this is characteristic weather for that area, but the region had been facing a rather uncharacteristic dry spell until we arrived. And, coincidentally enough, the book I've been reading -- Grave Peril (The Dresden Files #3) by Jim Butcher -- has had quite a bit of rain in the narrative. Oh, and today, we're getting quite the deluge:

Radar Map from wunderground.com at 10:00am EDT

So, I figure precipitation is a timely theme for the Flashback this week. Yes, I know there was a similarly themed Flashback last year (Rain Over Me on April 8, 2011), but there are plenty of other songs about rain, even within a single decade like our beloved 80s. So, what soaked songs made the cut this week? Read and hear more after the break.

Friday 80s Flashback for October 12, 2012

[Washington Rocks Redux] -- I am in Washington State again for a little vacation of hiking and relaxing. I figure this is a good time to re-run my Flashback post that originally ran one week after my first visit to the Seattle area and Olympic National Park (October 7, 2011). As I wrote then: "I thought it might be interesting to see what the 80s music scene was like in this state. Turns out, Washington was quite the hotbed for punk and heavy metal during that time (once you discount the brief fad of Twee Pop). Now, I had intended to post this flashback from the road, but I was not able to finish it in time. So, I'm brushing off the draft, cleaning it up, and posting it this week! If you would like to know what heavy rockin' gems I found, just read and hear more after the break. (Warning: These songs are loud, and possibly disturbing!)"

So, if you dare, crank up your volume and have a flashback to a Flashback!

Friday 80s Flashback for October 5, 2012

Stock Photography cliche (photo by Noodle93 - CC-BY)

[Such a Cliché] -- Some time ago, I thought about doing a Flashback about songs built around clichéd, or at least overused, phrases. Unfortunately, I already used my main lyrical contender for a different theme, that being the "Short Takes" Flashback from February of this year. But the cliché theme was given new life after I received an email from my father. During one of his recent trips to the Cleveland Clinic, he was listening to Sirius Satellite Radio. A few songs caught his ear, and made him think about me and these blog posts I write. "I wonder," he told me, "How many songs are based on well known phrases?" The two he found are definitely built that way, and certainly qualify for this week's theme. I added one more and, voilà, we have the trio of tunes necessary for a Flashback. If you would like to know the clichés and their songs for this week, just read and hear more after the break.

Gloam

Here is "Gloam," a beautiful short film by We Are The Forest.

 

I tip my hat to The Wild Hunt for hipping me to this work of art.